Sonya Fitzpatrick, as documented in this week's cover story, knows what your dog, cat, bird or frog is thinking. If you happen to have a bear or tiger as a pet, the famous animal communicator could let you know what those beasts are feeling, too.

Before the world's most celebrated pet psychic scored guest spots on talk shows and her own gig on Animal Planet, the now 71-year-old Fitzpatrick telepathically communicated with animals (an ability that can't really be taught, she says) while growing up on an English farm. Following a traumatic experience, however, she abandoned her natural gift for a long-time career as a fashion model.

In the early 1990s, Fitzpatrick moved to conservative east Texas and would eventually rediscover her ability to relay messages from the brains of animals to their owners. Today, when the pet psychic isn't consulting with celebrity clients like Rosie O'Donnell, she's talking to living and dead animals from her bed in Conroe, Texas.

Due to Fitzpatrick's fame (she charges $300 for a half-hour phone session), a number of other self-proclaimed animal communicators have come forward to claim that they, too, can descramble the thoughts of animals. Many of these folks aren't able to boast any type of pet therapy or veterinarian training.

Unsurprisingly, traditional animal healers think that pet psychiatry is a "crock," according to a Houston-area vet, because they're manipulating pet owners into feeling better about why Rex and Whiskers may be pissing on the bed.

However, at least one educated veterinarian, who received her training from one of the continent's most esteemed schools for animal therapy, isn't keen on dismissing animal communication as sorcery.

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I adore Sonya Fitzpatrick. She is a rare gift in a much too modern, rational, and impersonal 21st century world. Disregard comments on this site that see fraud. If one does not intuit oneself, one cannot understand. Hers is an extra-sensory gift that some have not yet developed. Imagine if someone lacked one of the five basic senses: you could never convince someone who does not smell that there is smell in the world. Same with the "6th sense", extra-sensory perception (ESP.) The negativists who comment here do not have it.

Time was, eons ago, when someone with her psychic gifts would be regarded with awe and special importance and significance in a tribe. But then again, that was also a time when two-legged and four-legged animals were all regarded as Planet Earth's special creatures, each kind deserving its own unique respect.

For instance, read joseph Campbell, mythologist, when he instructs that ancient people may have killed the bear for the usefulness of its flesh, fur, skin, bones, etc, but not without first granting it the privelege of a Bear Ceremony, wherein gratitude and thanks were offered: "If you do us the honor of giving up your life that we may live, then we return the honor of giving you a Bear Ceremony." (And, yes, such ceremonies pacified the human guilt for injuring one of God's majestic creatures. The point: they are all majestic!)

One must start with that attitude before understanding and respecting Sonya's ability. One must regard animals as deserving the same respect as humans. In fact, I have known dogs with better characters than some humans I have met in my life.

Thank you Sonya, for being there, for the voice of the animals. Best of health and long life to you!

I had a reading with Sonya last week, I am thankful-not a sucker. She was great, worth every penny, and talked about many things no one could possibly know. If you haven't had a reading, you cannot judge.

Gosh, I don't think she is a fraud a all. When she had her own show on AP, she knew that Llama wanted to wear a hat. How would she know that about a hatless llama unless the llama told her he wanted a hat, huh?

I have no doubt, Dick Doll, that your classification of Sonya as a swindler is an uneducated opinion-cloaked-as-fact that you have no problem blithely tossing out, notwithstanding what is your clear ignorance on the matter -- not unlike, I might add, your maladroit use of puntuation in your writing. Best to stick with those things that you might actually know a little about.

Get a reading from Sonya and THEN post something about her; but, maybe consider picking up a copy of Punctuation for Dummies before you endeavor to do any further writing.